Rhea Ripley Profile, Bio – Rhea Ripley (Demi Bennett) is currently signed with WWE under the ring name Rhea Ripley. Ripley is the first person to have won both NXT Women’s Title and NXT UK Women’s Title.
Real Name – Demi Bennett
Born – October 11, 1996 in Adelaide, Australia
Height – 5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
Weight – 137 lb (62 kg)
Major Titles Held
NXT Women’s Championship (1)
RAW Women’s Championship (1)
Before joining WWE in 2017, Bennett wrestled under her real name (or the slightly modified names Demi Bennet and Demiti Bennett) in Australia for Professional Wrestling Alliance (PWA) and Riot City Wrestling (RCW), and in Japan in Pro Wrestling Zero1 (Zero1) and Reina Joshi Puroresu.
In 2017, Bennett signed with the WWE. It was announced that she would compete in the inaugural Mae Young Classic under the new name Rhea Ripley. She went on to defeat Miranda Salinas in the first round, but lost to Dakota Kai in the second round.
Ripley made her NXT television debut on 25 October 2017 episode of NXT, participating in a battle royal to determine one of the contenders for the vacant NXT Women’s Championship at NXT TakeOver: WarGames, which was won by Nikki Cross.
Sporting a new look, Ripley competed in the second annual Mae Young Classic in 2018 and finished in the semi-finals, defeating MJ Jenkins, Kacy Catanzaro, and Tegan Nox before losing to Io Shirai. Throughout the tournament, Ripley has shown a new attitude, one of which is declining to shake her opponent’s hand before the match and more aggressive and remorseless from the previous year, establishing herself as a heel in the process.
Shortly after the 2018 Mae Young Classic, Ripley became part of the NXT UK brand as part of the premiere of the newly-created NXT UK show.
During the television tapings of the show in August (that aired throughout November), Ripley took part of an eight woman tournament for the inaugural NXT UK Women’s Championship. She went on to defeat Xia Brookside in the first round, Dakota Kai in the semi finals and Toni Storm in the finals to become the inaugural champion. With the win, Ripley also became the first Australian to ever hold a women’s championship in WWE.
In October, Ripley also competed before the first ever all women’s pay–per–view, Evolution, where she successfully retained her title against Dakota Kai in a dark match (due to the tournament airing a month later). Throughout her championship reign, Ripley went on to fend off title contenders such as Isla Dawn and Deonna Purrazzo. At NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool, she lost her title to Toni Storm ending her reign at 139 days.
At the Royal Rumble 2019, she debuted on the main roster by entering the Women’s Royal Rumble at number 24. She eliminated Kacy Catanzaro, Dana Brooke, and Zelina Vega before being eliminated by Bayley.
On 28 August 2019 episode of NXT, Ripley made her return to the brand when she interrupted NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler. Swiping the microphone from Baszler before she could even talk, Ripley said that Baszler may have beaten everyone on NXT, but she hasn’t beaten her, signalling a feud between the two. Since then, Ripley has slowly transitioned into a babyface character, defeating several heel wrestlers on NXT.
In parallel with her feud against Baszler, on 1 November episode of SmackDown, Ripley and Tegan Nox were one of the many NXT wrestlers to invade the show, challenging Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville to a tag-team match, which Ripley and Nox emerged victorious. Later that night, Ripley joined Triple H and the rest of the NXT roster as they declared war on both Raw and SmackDown, and vowed to win the 2019 Survivor Series brand warfare.
At NXT TakeOver: Wargames II, she led Team Ripley (herself, Candice LeRae, Dakota Kai and Nox) in the first ever women’s WarGames match; despite Kai turning the match into a de facto 2-on-4 handicap match by attacking and incapacitating Nox before walking away, Ripley and LeRae were successful in defeating Team Baszler (Shayna Baszler, Io Shirai, Bianca Belair, and Kay Lee Ray) on their own.
The following night at Survivor Series, Ripley was part of Team NXT which beat Team RAW and Team SmackDown, and the leader of her team in the 5-on-5-on-5 Women’s Survivor Series Triple Threat elimination match, at end of which her team won; she gave her team the victory by eliminating SmackDown captain Sasha Banks, with she, LeRae and Shirai as the survivors.
On the December 18 episode of NXT, Rhea Ripley won the NXT Women’s Championship by defeating Shayna Baszler. This makes her the first female superstar to have won both the NXT Women’s and NXT UK Women’s Championships.
More to come…
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